French Court Frees Iranian Group Leader

PIERRE-ANTOINE SOUCHARD

Published 8:00 pm, Tuesday, July 1, 2003

Associated Press Writer

A French court on Wednesday ordered the release of nine people arrested during a recent broad anti-terrorism sweep, including the leader of an exile group seeking to topple Iran's ultra-religious government, judicial officials said.

But the Paris appeals court said Maryam Rajavi, a leader of the group Mujahedeen Khalq, and one other defendant must first pay bail. Rajavi was ordered to pay about $93,000 and likely will not be released before Thursday, the officials said.

Two other jailed members of the most powerful Iranian opposition movement were released Tuesday.

Rajavi and more than 150 other group members were detained in a June 17 sweep of their European headquarters _ a walled compound north of Paris where police found $9 million in cash.

France's counterintelligence agency, the DST, claims the Mujahedeen was planning attacks on Iranian diplomatic missions in Europe and assassinations of Iranian secret agents in Europe. It also claims the group was planning to make its headquarters a nerve center for terrorism after losing its firepower in Iraq, where it mounted attacks on neighboring Iran.

Seventeen people were placed under investigation _ a step short of being officially charged _ on suspicion of associating with or financing terrorist groups. Eleven were jailed and six were freed immediately.

"This is the happiest day of my life," said Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the group's political arm. "There was no merit to these allegations."

The 17 remain under investigation.

The Mujahedeen, which has an army in Iraq, is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. Its army was disarmed by U.S. forces in Iraq in April.

The jailing of Rajavi, whom the group has named "president-elect" in a future Iranian government, provoked dramatic protests including two self-immolations. Six others were injured after setting themselves on fire and two hunger strikers were hospitalized Tuesday, officials have said.

"I think French justice has shown that it will not bow before political and diplomatic considerations and that there was no reason to hold these people behind bars," said Rajavi's lawyer, Henri Leclerc.

The Mujahedeen have called the arrests a "dirty deal" between Tehran and Paris meant to improve France's standing with the clerical regime.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, a Washington-based representative for the group's political arm, said the arrest of Rajavi was part of a bigger policy of "appeasement" by the French government intended to win economic benefits in Iran.

The guerrilla organization, born in 1965 to topple Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, joined in the 1979 Islamic revolution that brought clerical rule to Iran. The group then fell out with the leadership and fled in 1981.

Massoud Rajavi, an original leader, is said to have remained in Iraq, where his wife, Maryam, was until April.